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IvarREW
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Slow/nonexistent sync for shared folders in VMWare Fusion 6.0.2

I've got a mac host and a Ubuntu linux guest. I recently upgraded from 6.0.1 to 6.0.2.

The guest has the latest vmware tools installed (ie: from Fusion 6.0.2).

I'm now having issues where changes to files made on the host are not being seen by the guest os.

Note: The host shared folder is being mounted - I can still navigate the directories from both systems.. it's just that file changes on the host are not reflected inside the guest.

This is highly problematic as my development environment is on OSX but my server environment is on the linux guest. Without a functioning file sharing system I can't work, so any suggestions appreciated.

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steve_goddard
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Yes the fixes are in the 6.0.3 release.

I think the release notes for this issue only got mentioned in  the Workstation release not the Fusion release for some reason.

Thanks for the updates about the testing you have done.

Steve

Thanks. Steve

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nancyz
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Which directory did you share on your host, say Desktop or Documents? Would you please remove and re-add the shared folder and see if this could resolve the problem? Thanks.

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IvarREW
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So I've since upgraded the Ubuntu 13.10 guest's kernel (to 3.11.0-13-generic)  and I've reinstalled the VMWare tools that come with Fusion 6.0.2. I have turned off shared folders then rebooted, then enabled shared folders and rebooted. Things 'look' ok in that I can navigate the filesystem but sometimes I am getting odd file corruption (specifically truncation) when I try to read files that I have edited and saved on the host system. ie: I can cat the same file on mac and on linux and get different results.

As an aside, is there a way to download vmware guest tools directly ? specifically for linux ? also, any chance VMWare might package up guest tools in the .deb format?

danigiri
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I having the same issues with a  CentOS guest system. I have deleted and added the share again but the problems persist.

I am resorting to unmounting and mounting the share every time I make a change.

hashpipe
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I have the exact same problem and the exact same dev setup. This is really a nightmare. I might just revert to the earlier version. Such pathetic upgrade..waste of money so far..

alex_time
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The same very problem here...is a nightmare! I have to reboot at every file changes! The entire system is not usable at all with this problem.

IvarREW
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@danigiri Check out the Shared folders showing strange behavior thread - apparently unmounting / remounting the filesystem still has issues, so beware.

I don't really want to setup NFS on mac *just* to get around this issue, but it's looking like it might be the best option.

Edit: Though it appears 10.9 has issues with NFS  see NFS Manager: Description  Ahhh!

dogatonic
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I'm having the exact same problem.

My dev machine is running OSX 10.8.3 and I just upgraded Fusion from 4 to 6.02 running Ubuntu server 12.04. My shared folder is in "/mnt/hgfs".

Scenario:

I edit a file on my Mac (eclipse), save the file.

Then go to command line for the vm. I "vi" the file on the sever, it is not changed. If I "ls -lsha" the directory in "/mnt/hgfs/", the timestamp has changed to show the file is different, but it is not.

This seems to happen when I have made small changes to the code, so the hack to force it to sync with the server is I add about 4 lines of junk comments. Then the server seems to think enough has changed that it will sync up the files. But that is not sustainable.

By the way, I'm running 2 vm's and this is happening on both. And it was not happening until I upgraded to 6.02.

Need a fix!

cram501
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I've got the same problem with the files syncing.

Is the only short term solution to downgrade to 6.0.1?

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steve_goddard
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Hi All,

My sincerest apologies for this breakage in usability.

Some fixes went in to deal with concurrent file accesses for read/write all within the guest OS.

However, this appears to intermittently break when the file has changed on the host in-between uses within the guest OS.

The guest OS side is failing to note the file change and purge the guest OS cache and reload the file as new.

I am looking into this to address as soon as I can.

The simplest maybe to downgrade back to  6.0.1 tools for now until this gets addressed in the next release of tools.

Or as another user stated earlier in the thread, disable the sharing and enable the sharing feature (or manually from a terminal shell)  remove and recreate the shared folder mount under /mnt/hgfs.

I am sorry that this wasn't caught prior to the release.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
IvarREW
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Steve - Thanks for the update and reply - it's good to know this issue is being addressed! Please keep us posted as to when the fix might be available.

Also, is there an official download link for the 6.0.1 linux tools available ?

sshrefler
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Thanks Steve.

Along with a download link, instructions for downgrading to 6.0.1 would be helpful.

steve_goddard
VMware Employee
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You can download the tools from https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/vmw-desktop/fusion/6.0.1/1331545/packages/

Pick the OS version of the zipped tar file and extract the files into a folder of your choice.

In  a terminal window change to that folder and run the vmware-install script. You will need to sudo it and select the default options should be fine.

I hope that helps.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
alex_time
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It seems impossible to unmount due to resource busy, but I cannot find the process using it...any tips please?

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steve_goddard
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Did you try umount -f /mnt/hgfs

The -f option is for force unmount even if files there are resources in use.

Also make sure nothing obvious is using the mount, like a terminal window is using the /mnt/hgfs/... path e.g. check with pwd


Steve

Thanks. Steve
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AktDave
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I am also doing development using shared folders to my linux guests and I am experiencing the same truncation/corruption issue.

Host OSX 10.8.5, Build 12F45 using Sublime Text 2.0

VMWare Fusion 6.0.2 (1398658)

The problem happens with both guest tools versions I have tried:

VMwareTools-9.6.0-1294478

VMwareTools-9.6.1-1378637

--

Dave

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dogatonic
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Has anyone had any success with this solution?

I have tried downgrading tools to 6.0.1 with no luck. I still get truncating and bad sync problems.

This post has been marked with a "Correct answer" but I'm not seeing it.

alex_time
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Neither I!

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IvarREW
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I've unmarked the correct answer as it seems others have not had any success in using Vmware tools 6.0.1.

Work around suggestions are to share folders with NFS (possibly problematic in OSX 10.9) or sshfs.

(Personally, I rebuilt a dev environment on my guest os and am just sticking with that until there's solid confirmation that hgfs is fixed)

Codacity
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Also tried downgrading and still have an issue, here is an example:

$ cat test.txt

1

2

3

4

5

I deleted the line with 3 on:

$ cat test.txt

1

2

3

4

$ sudo mount -o remount /mnt/hgfs

$ cat test.txt

1

2

4

5